I Take Back Everything I Said About beINSPORT and WSBK (and WSSK)

I remember the halcyon days of 2013 like they were two years ago. Oh, wait.

That’s when beINSPORT first picked up WSBK in the U.S. After watching other channels clearly not GAF about it, beINSPORT seemed like a massive relief—even if it did cost a little extra. As you can see if you follow the link above, all they had to do was give us the world feed commentary and I was happy.

Then beIN started messing with the formula while clearly not having a clue what they were doing. First, announcers like Andres Cordero would come on and read copy while the world feed commentators were talking—and it was clear that they either didn’t know or didn’t care about motorcycle racing at all. (Seriously, his name isn’t Michael Melandri, which you repeatedly called him.) That beIN primarily shows soccer (or football, or fútbol, if you prefer) shouldn’t matter, and wouldn’t even be an issue if they just stuck with the world feed.

BUT THEN IT GOT EVEN WORSE

I know sports frequently run over their allotted time, and that you can’t always plan for it—but once again, WSBK is now consistently getting shafted on beIN’s “schedule.”

I put “schedule” in annoying and intentionally pejorative quotes because it’s never, ever on schedule anymore. Sometimes beIN shows WSBK live, and sometimes it doesn’t—but either way, they frequently show it in the middle of the night when I have to work the next morning. So we set the DVR for it, like most people would.

Unfortunately, because the broadcast of WSBK rarely (if ever) starts on time—even when what they’re showing is clearly a recording, so you know the beIN control room has full power over what’s shown and when—we rarely get the whole broadcast.

WSBK runs two races during each weekend, which are separated by their support races that we got back in the beginning of beIN’s broadcast, but don’t appear to get anymore. But I could live with that, even if it’s moderately annoying. The really maddening thing is when beIN’s broadcast starts early, so anyone tuning in to watch as it’s aired (or DVRing the thing to watch later) tunes into Race 1 with 5 laps to go, or something similarly ridiculous. Unlike some racing series, there’s usually ACTUAL RACING going on during those first 15 or so laps—not just a two-wheeled parade. So missing those first 15 laps really just sucks a giant bag of dicks.

If this only happened once or twice, whatever. Stuff happens. But the scheduling (or lack thereof) remains consistently terrible, and is making me once again wish another network would get the broadcast license sorted out for a series that I love, because I really hate seeing it treated this way.

I suppose we could just get a video pass and stream the entire season, thus neatly avoiding bad broadcasts. But it’s WORLD Superbike. I feel like if you’re going to bother to show something, you should do it right. Adhering to a schedule when your primary item is sports is tricky, no doubt—but somehow ESPN, CBS Sports, and NBC Sports all manage to deal with it.

MotoLady has been posting updates about yet another road rage incident in which a car and a motorcycle tangled, and the motorcyclist was violently and purposefully killed. In this case, there’s video; and in this Read more…